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Obviously I have not posted for a while.. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New year to all. The end of last semester came and went so fast, which included my husband, Barry arriving from the US at the end of November. Then we both got sick! I am still dealing with the residue of painful pulled muscles from coughing too much! It was the worst bug I have had in years. I think a lot of people have had it, so sympathies for all those who did!

Glastonbury sunset

The dates for our workshop are now set. These are 27th May to 31st May. If I can get enough people to sign up and pay a deposit now, I can book Sparkford Hall for a very good price. My daughter has a connection with this beautiful house and because of that I am being given a good deal. Please let me know if you are interested. May is such a glorious time of the year in the UK. Photos to follow. I hope you will join Barry and I for our first major workshop in UK together. You can also stay over the weekend for a little extra. They will also organise meals so that you can concentrate completely on your work.

Since I last wrote I did a three day refresher course with Jason Hicklin, which was great! These workshops are so intense and since the ink, paper etc., is all prepared for you, all one has to do is create! The image below is a combination of soft ground and sugar lift, stopped out by using Litho crayon. Lots of possibilities here and rather excited about using this method when I get back to University at the end of January.

Fenland – 9.50 x 9.50 cm – Etching (soft ground, sugar lift)

Botanics – this is an etching which has gone through many lives.

Barry and I visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park yesterday on our way back down from Scotland. It’s such a beautiful place. A great setting for incredible sculpture.

Barry and I are finally back at my Dad’s in Lincolnshire after a couple of weeks travelling around. I have managed to get back into painting and I have just finished the above oil, which I started earlier this year!

We spent some time in London, visiting friends, going to exhibitions and visiting one of my daughters, then onto Somerset to visit the other one and popping in to see a good friend in Gloucestershire. I thought I would share some photos (difficult to choose, so many good ones) and information from our trip. At Tate Britain I finally got to see a Vija Celmins exhibit, which was worth the wait! I have been studying her for my essay and was desperate to see some of her work in reality. As John Berger wrote in The Shape of the Pocket,

“You have to see them. Words can’t get round them. And reproduction sends them back to where they came from”

How right he is, they are truly exquisite. She also curated a little exhibit of Turner’s watercolours and prints.

We also went to see The Mechanical Hand Exhibit which was fascinating. 25 years of printing at The Paupers Press. Not as much pure etching as I had hoped for, but some really wonderful work, a lot of lithographs, but I think my favourite was Christopher Le Brun’s etchings and Grayson Perry’s Map of Nowhere, which is fantastic and very humourous, if you are fortunate enough to be able to see it close up.

Grayson Perry Map of Nowhere – Heliogravure

Below are a few images from our travels…

Holly (my eldest) and I walking around the Cadbury Castle iron age hill fort.